Votes Roll in for Ballot on OOXML Standard
"There was strong opposition, but not so strong as last time," he said.
The tradition at SFS meetings is to reach a consensus rather than to vote on matters such as this, he said.
"We didn't fully reach it, but after five hours the chair made the decision," he said.
While Finnish software company representatives at the meeting remained entrenched in their positions, representatives of central and local government, who also have a voice, were persuaded that the Geneva meeting had improved the draft standard enough to approve it.
"It was mainly government bodies and communities that are for it, that was the big change," said Vartiainen.
(Additional reporting by Brenda Zulu in Lusaka, Zambia, and Rebecca Wanjiku in Nairobi, Kenya.)
